The SMP client is the only client that takes advantage of dual/quad core cpus to there fullest potential. No longer is there a need to have more than one instance of F@H to take advantage of all the cores your CPU possesses. But there are some warnings and general thoughts here.

1. SMP WU unit deadlines are extremely tight. They range from 1 day at the minimum, to 4 at the maximum. An average C2D can perform a frame in 22minutes on the hardest WUs. I suggest that in order to fold these work units you fold at least 10hrs a day at a minimum, or you will miss the deadline.

2. Remember these are beta clients, they are extremely stable, but you can encounter problems with the client. All are documented, and the most common ones, have easy fixes. Don't hesitates to post here.

3. The reward on these WUs is huge. The largest WUs are 1760pointers and range to 700-800points. You can produce very large PPDs in a very short time, adding a tremendous boost to the team.

4. Almost any 64bit OS will work for Linux. This guide uses Ubuntu and not all steps will apply to every OS.

Install the Microsoft .NET framework v2.0 before installing the SMP client. Next, run the self-extracting installer to choose an installation directory and install the files there. Then run install.bat in the installation directory to complete the install process. Running the fah.exe binary starts the client. More detailed instructions are at the bottom of this page. The quick version is:

1. Make sure .netframework 2.0 is installed 2. Make sure you have an account with a password set up (FAH SMP on Windows won't work if your account doesn't have a password associated with it). 3. Install FAH SMP client 4. Run install.bat file 5. Run fah.exe

Quick install for Windows Vista

The .NET framework v2.0 is not needed (it is already installed). Run the self-extracting installer to choose an installation directory and install the files there. Then run install.bat in the installation directory to complete the install process. Running the fah.exe binary starts the client. More detailed instructions are at the bottom of this page. The quick version is:

1. Make sure .netframework 2.0 is installed 2. Make sure you have an account with a password set up (FAH SMP on Windows won't work if your account doesn't have a password associated with it). 3. Install FAH SMP client 4. Run install.bat file 5. Run fah.exe

The installation process is a little complicated. PLEASE READ BELOW.1. The initial release is a *replacement* for your current 5.91 SMP client. We will have a fresh install version soon.2. Make a backup of a working FAH Windows/SMP installation. Install into your current SMP working directory3. Unzip the 5.92 file in your test directory4. Open a command prompt window (run as administrator if Vista)5. run install.bat. This will do several things.. a) install DeinoMPI. You don't need to do anything special here.. b) In the terminal window, you will be prompted to create a "credential store" that DeinoMPI will use to authenticate the mpi processes. Important: do not use a passphrase here (just hit return for no passphrase and say yes, you're sure). I recommend encrypting the data 'protected' and using the registry for storage... c) add your user information to the encrypted credential store. This will prompt you for your username and password... d) run the standard mpiexec -np 2 foo test application to make sure things work. On some WinXP systems, you may see a defective Windows Firewall dialogue box come up. The firewall may also ask you to unblock applications (this is a good idea).Notes from the forum mods on the above process:5.d) The Windows Firewall dialog box will pop up twice. The first time, you will be able to see and click Unblock for DeinoMPI. The second time, the pop up window is hosed. However, since the unblock button has a hot key, you can press alt+u to unblock the next item and make it go away. I checked my firewall exceptions list after unblocking both. The second pop up is for fahcore1.exe.5.d.2) I found a different bypass. After having gotten the hosed windows many times in WinXP I went to Start + ControlPanel + SecurityCenter + WindowsFirewall. On the Exceptions tab I scrolled through the list of names, adding a checkmark to the appropriate boxes.6. Start fah.exe as normal.

For those running 32bit Linux and emulating 64bit like me, watch out, Linux VMWare Software has a nasty little bug where it doesn't run full speed in your VM. My Core 2 Duo was running at 774Mhz and not the full 2GHZ. Apply the following fix

On a Linux host server:

To prevent guest clocks from running too quickly, specify the correct maximum host CPU speed in your global configuration file, /etc/vmware/config. If this file exists, edit it with a text editor, adding the lines described below. The file may not exist. If it does not exist, create it as a plain text file.

Add the following lines to your global configuration file:

host.cpukHz = "X" where "X" equals the maximum speed in KHz of your host machine. That is, its speed in MHz times 1000 or its speed in GHz times 1000000. A 3GHz machine would be 3000000. host.noTSC = TRUE ptsc.noTSC = TRUE

To periodically correct the time (once per minute) when a guest clock runs slowly, VMware Tools must be installed in the guest. On the Options tab of VMware Tools in the guest, verify that Time synchronization between the virtual machine and the host operating system is selected.

Native Linux Installation

For the Linux Installation, there is only one requirement for your choice of Linux. It must be a 64bit Version. My choice is Ubuntu, only because I have the most familiarity with it.

After you have installed and configured your distro to your liking, perform the following steps

kenc51 wrote:Most 64bit Linux distros come with the 32bit libraries installed by default. If you are using something other than a distro based on Debian (Ubuntu etc) and the command "sudo apt-get install ia32-libs" doesn't work, don't worry. This is probably because your distro hasn't got the "APT" package manager, also if you search to install ia32-libs and can't find it, don't worry.

Yes good catch, after I made sure I added any suggestions to the sticky, I copied and pasted the first message into a Gedit, and then deleted the thread. It was easier than deleting 2.5 pages of comments. Then I recreated it. Must have forgot to sticky it

Well I finally got VMWare running in Vista x64 though it was one really big headache to figure out...apparantly VM Server doesn't work correctly in Vista x64.

Anyway, here's how I did it:

In order to meet the deadlines of 3 to 4 days for SMP work units, you will need to run this client at least 10 hours per day. If you cannot do this, then please consider running a non-SMP client which have much longer deadlines. If you can do this, then great! Just follow each step carefully and make sure to read the footnotes!________________________________________________________

This works on any version of Windows and on most multi-core processors.

Make a new folder in My Documents called VMware and unzip this file there. Open the Ubuntu-7.10-desktop-amd64 folder you just unzipped.

Open the .vmx file in Wordpad and add numvcpus = "2" to the end of it. Also find where it says memsize = "[some number]" and change that number to the amount of ram you want to allocate; eg, I've allocated 1Gb of ram so that line reads memsize = "1024" for me. Save and close it. Now double-click the .vmx file. This will start VMware Player and Ubuntu will begin booting.

You should see a nice brown desktop. In the main menu, click Applications / Accessories / Terminal.

Now close the terminal. Right-click the desktop and choose Create Launcher. Type in the information below.

Type: Application in Terminal

Name: Folding@home

Command: /home/ubuntu/Fah/startfah

Now double-click Folding@Home

Iconize is a great program to minimize VMplayer (and anything else) to the system tray.

For quad-cores:If you would like to utilize all four cores for Folding@Home instead of just two, you will need to exit VMware Player and rename the folder in My Documents/VMware to something else (like Ubuntu-7.10-desktop-amd64-2) and then repeat this guide starting at step 4. VMware Player only supports two virtual processors, so you will need to run two instances of VMware Player. Just be sure to set a different Machine ID in advanced options.

Here's a guide to access your VMware SMP client (I actually wrote all of this one )

In ubuntu, goto Places>Home Folder then right-click the Fah folder and click Share FolderIt will prompt you to install some software, you only need the one entitled SMBOnce that's installed goto System>Administration>Shared Folders and verify that the folder is sharedOpen a terminal window and run sudo smbpasswd -a ubuntuBe sure to set the password to ubuntu

Now in Windows, add a client to FahMon and tell it it's located at //UBUNTU/Fah/It should prompt you for a username and password, just use ubuntu for both

Your VMware SMP client should now show up in FahMon!

Last edited by Alathald on Fri Oct 10, 2008 8:38 pm, edited 3 times in total.

nice job there althald, once I get some time, I believe your directions are easier, and I'm going to repalce mine with yours. I'm also thinking about creating a VM of ubuntu that is stripped down, not everything that can be is disabled in that 7.10 VM, not to mention 8.04 is the latest

Yeah if I could get VMworkstation working I was going to do a stripped down image that already had Folding@Home installed and ready to go with the shortcuts on the desktop already. Then people could just download the image, pop it into the player and be folding right away. Alas, I can't get VMworkstation working on my computer so no image creation for me

Look into just installing matchbox or iceWM on the server edition, one of those really small window managers, it only really needs a spot to put the shortcut if all people plan on doing is just folding in the VM.

server CLI Version is lighter, no need for a WM. I had a VM configured like that at some point. Once its setup, which I'll do there is no issue running it. Can just create an alias in the terminal like fah, and you just type that in, and it runs FAH